1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data outputting system which implements a new method called tacit viewing as a new way of interaction between the user and data. More specifically, as a background or the like, the system represents the peripheral data related to the focused data to which attention is paid by the user at a certain time and at an appropriate timing.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
At first, for explaining the concept of the new method called tacit viewing, the background of the present invention is discussed.
Conventionally, there have been methods where the user takes out desirable pieces of data from an information system storing a large amount of data, which can be roughly classified into the following four types.
The first type is a method called retrieval, in which a user takes out the pieces of information with a specific purpose.
In general, when a piece of information is retrieved, the user can immediately confirm whether it is the desired information or not. If it is not the desired one, or insufficient, further retrieval is conducted. Extraction of pieces of information by keyword retrieval falls in this category. Substantially, the process of looking for and discovering something in our daily life, for example, based on a memory such as "The material should have been in this cabinet", also falls into the same category. The characteristic of the retrieval is to be conducted on the basis of the specific intention or purpose.
The second type is a method called browsing, in which a user takes multiple pieces of information with no specific or definite intention, or with weak or indefinite intention or purpose.
Searching for pieces of information through a system browser of "Smalltalk" or a browser of the Internet corresponds to this case. Browsing around backbones of books in a bookstore also falls into this category. According to browsing, the range of objects to be searched is wider than that in the case of retrieval.
The third type is a method called overviewing which takes a view of relations among pieces of information, or structure of groups of information, contained in the whole retrieval object or its parts before the content of each individual information piece.
The method disclosed by "The Information Visualizer, An Information Workspace", S. K. Carol, G. G. Robertson and J. D. Mackinlay, Proc. ACM CHI '91, pp. 181-188 or the method of grasping the whole tendency of the group of information including pieces of information each of which is represented by a dot on a display screen through the user interface (UI) of "*CemeDot" (a coined word) disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei. 7-121565 (1995) correspond to this case. Taking an extensive view of a town from the top of a hill, confirming physical features of a town using a map, grasping the whole construction of a document from the table of contents, and so forth fall into this category.
The fourth type is a method called accessed viewing (a coined word) in which pieces of information show up themselves regardless of the subjectivity of a person.
In certain circumstances, electronic mail or TV news may fall into this category. A direct mail, circular notice, telephone call, and listening to the radio or watching the TV without paying attention are also examples of pieces of information showing up themselves. Neon or signboards greeting people's eyes while they are walking in the street, sounds of advertisement, a landscape from the train window which changes momentarily, and so on are also pieces of information showing up by themselves. Those pieces of information automatically come up to a person if only ears and eyes fulfill their functions and the person is in such a circumstance.
Actually, the above three methods require the precondition of a person's subjectivity; therefore, pieces of information do not appear until the person behaves with his/her will. The accessed viewing is contrary thereto, and there is far more information than in the cases of the first three methods.
Presently, the above four methods are all for viewing the pieces of information through information systems. However, in the relation between people and pieces of information in everyday life, there is a kind of relation which cannot be grasped by any of the above methods. It is a phenomenon that pieces of the background information appear in front of a user's eye when paying attention to a specific piece of information is completed or suspended. A phenomenon in contrast with this occurs, that is, if attention is paid to a specific piece of information, other pieces of information surrounding thereof withdraw to the background and become invisible. Such phenomena may be hardly apparent in everyday life because they are too fundamental.
These phenomena can be explained by a point of view suggested by Jean-Paul Sartre that, in a phenomenon, if we pay attention to a certain object, other things turn into its background, a concept proposed by Yoshikage Kei that only a certain object is consciously perceived, but other objects are also perceived subconsciously, and a concept named tacit knowing, mentioned by Michael Polanyi, that we can know more than we can tell, that is, we have a knowledge that we cannot tell.
The inventors of the present invention positively utilize the phenomena between people and groups of pieces of information to intervene in paying attention and releasing attention, and to support thereof. The inventors consider whether it is possible to improve the efficiency in information processing (informing whether there are items left unwritten which must be written in a document, or should be written in a document for making it more effective, making the user confirm whether there is any case to be dealt with on the telephone as a minor side issue, and so forth) or not in some cases, and in other cases, consider whether it is possible to support flexible thought (showing pieces of stimulating information for breaking the deadlock, promoting refreshing the user by himself/herself, and so on) or not.
So far computers have provided pieces of information to be paid attention to by people in various ways, but have not been concerned with their background. In the real human society, the background is fixed. However, computers can control the background dynamically. Therefore, by utilizing this capability, the inventors of the present invention consider whether it is possible to create a new method of viewing information for human beings by implementing the function of dynamically controlling pieces of information which are paid attention to and pieces of background information in a virtual world on computers.
The inventors of the present invention review the above new method of viewing information based on the relation between "focused" information and "peripheral" information related to the "focused" information (variously related from the various viewpoints, which is controlled by computers), and then provide the present invention.
The new method of viewing information is named "tacit viewing" by the inventors of the present invention as the fifth method of viewing which follows the above four methods. The tacit viewing method is discussed below.
Tacit viewing is the method in which a specific item is visible if it is currently paid attention to with outstanding concentration, and items in the background or periphery of the item paid attention to gradually appear as the degree of concentration declines. The case contrary thereto, that is where concentration on a specific item is gradually focused, is also tacit viewing. If the method is implemented in an information system, a piece of information is taken and read with a specific purpose (this piece of information is referred to as the focused data), and after an appropriate interval from representation of the focused data (of course, there are cases of no interval), pieces of information related to the focused data (these pieces of information are referred to as the peripheral data) are automatically determined and retrieved to be represented for supporting or supplementing resolution of problems in the focused data.
For realizing the tacit viewing, it is important to overcome the following technical problems when the focused data is determined,
(1) how to determine the peripheral data; PA1 (2) at what timing the peripheral data is represented; PA1 (3) how to represent the peripheral data.
The reasons of importance are as follows. As to (1), there is an advantage of utilizing the computer power in its capability of variously controlling the determination of peripheral data based on any of various viewpoints of periphery. As to (2), if grasp of a more appropriate timing is not taken into consideration, the effect of the tacit viewing is decreased because a person pays attention to something and loosens up the attention in a specific time period. Further, as to (3), if the peripheral data can be determined in various ways, there is some fear that the relation between the focused data and the peripheral data is difficult to be understood; therefore it is necessary to contrive to represent the peripheral data so that the relation between the peripheral data and the focused data may be understood easily and immediately.
Next, the tacit viewing is explained in comparison with a conventionally known technique related to data outputting.
A system described in "Issues in the Design of Computer Support for Co-authoring and Commenting", C. M. Neuwirth, D. S. Kaufer, R. Chandhok and J. H. Morris, Proc. of CSCW '90, pp. 183-195 has a purpose of supporting the communication between the author and co-authors or referees in the process of preparing a document. The system recommends them to positively give their comments on the contents of the document and provides a function therefor. Specific examples are described in which the text is placed in the center of the screen, and comments of the co-authors and referees are written in the right and left sides of the text. By displaying both text and comments, an overall view of the data paid attention to and the data related thereto is improved.
However, in this system there are four unresolved problems that prevent realization of tacit viewing.
(1) In tacit viewing, the relation between the focused data and the peripheral data must be determined flexibly and variously. However, in the aforesaid system, the relation is fixedly and uniquely determined.
(2) A group of comments fixedly exists for the text. Therefore, it is impossible to designate one of the comments and regard it as the focused data, namely, the text.
(3) It is necessary that the relation between the pieces of data be designated by the user when the pieces of data are created. Therefore, the user is forced to have the burden of assigning relationships.
(4) In tacit viewing, the timing of representation of the peripheral data after representation of the focused data must be controlled, but there is no such mechanism in the aforementioned system.
Another system, described in "NoteCards in a Nutshell", F. G. Halasz, T. P. Moran, and R. H. Trigg, CHI+GI, 1987, regards icons corresponding to pieces of hypermedia data as nodes, and connects the nodes according to linkages among the pieces of data and displays them as if they constitute a network for viewing relation among the pieces of data in a database. Consequently, it becomes possible for the user to roughly grasp the contents of the database as a whole, as well as to grasp the position of the data to which the user's attention is currently directed in the whole database and what kinds of pieces of data exist around the data. If the user wants to pay attention to part of the data, that part can be expanded and displayed. The user can read the contents of the data by designating the icon corresponding thereto, which is a feature of a typical overview system.
However, with regard to the aforesaid system, another problem (problem (5)) for realizing the tacit viewing other than the above problems (1), (3) and (4) is described as follows, which is related to the overall view.
The data displayed as a node consists of an icon which is the abstraction of the data and a short sentence symbolizing the data, and therefore the user is unable to grasp the contents of the data. If the user wants to read the contents of the data, he/she is required to designate the display of the contents on another window. If the user wants to read the contents of the neighboring data, he/she is required to designate in the same way. This is not only to press a load to the user, but also to impede the simultaneous viewing of the contents of the data.
A system described in "Context and Orientation in Hypermedia Networks", K. Utting and N. Yankelovich, ACM Transactions on Information Systems, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 58-83, 1989 displays a database consisting of the hypermedia data as a network and provides three functions: "Global Map", "Local Map" and "Local Tracking Map". "Global Map" displays the whole database like a network, regarding the pieces of data as nodes for supporting the user in grasping the database as a whole. "Local Map" displays the local relation among the pieces of data in the "Global Map" by taking the node to which attention is paid and designated by the user and other nodes directly connected thereto by linkage, and locating the node designated by the user in the center and the group of nodes directly connected by linkage in the periphery of the designated data. The user can designate a piece of data in the group of pieces of data located in the periphery to be brought to the center as a new piece of data to which attention is paid. In "Local Tracking Map", it is possible to make the node to which attention is paid in the "Local Map" dynamically vary in accordance with the change of the node to which the user pays attention.
However, the above-described problems (1), (3), (4) and (5) are left unresolved; and therefore it is impossible to realize the tacit viewing.
In a browsing apparatus for the hypertext disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei. 4-321144 (1992), a database retaining the pieces of hypertext data is displayed as a tree structure starting with an arbitrary node and providing indents becoming gradually deeper to the lower nodes in order. An application example such that a symbol `-` is assigned to the top of a node if it is the lowest node of the tree structure (the node having no lower nodes), and a symbol `+` is assigned to the other nodes is also suggested.
However, in this system, the above-described problems (1), (3), (4) and (5) are left unresolved; therefore the tacit viewing cannot be realized.
As described so far, problems preventing realization of the tacit viewing cannot be resolved by the prior art, and in particular, problem (4), namely, incapability of control of the time of representation of the peripheral data is a difficult problem.
As a technique related to representation dealing with time controlling, the following system is known.
In a speech note preparation supporting system disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei. 8-147275 (1996), the time necessary for making a speech is calculated by extracting words from a note and consulting a reading time dictionary for each word to complete the speech within the time limit.
However, in the tacit viewing, the time necessary for understanding the focused data greatly varies according to various factors such that the data has been read in the past, or the like. For appropriately executing time control coping with the variation, it is insufficient to only calculate the time necessary for reading the speech note aloud, which is a one-sided action. Even though the technique is applied, the timing controlling mechanism in tacit viewing cannot be realized.
A presentation time estimation apparatus disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei. 2-7162 (1990) analyzes the presentation materials and calculates the amounts of information disclosure, and estimates the time necessary for making a presentation based thereon. It is discussed that, in this system, the time necessary for presentation is estimated basically according to a speed with which the audiences understand the presentation, and that the time is controlled in accordance with the degree of importance of items in the presentation.
However, in this system, if it is taken into consideration that the sending of information is the important purpose and the receivers (audiences) are not fixed but have variations, it cannot be expected that the past cases are directly regarded as important factors of time controlling. Further, since the language and terms to be used are determined in advance corresponding to the scene, they cannot be the factors of time controlling in the system.
As described above, it is impossible for the prior art related to time controlling to realize the requirements of tacit viewing. The reason is that the focused data subject to time control is not always sent by the user himself/herself, and it has unexpected variations from many viewpoints such as language, specialty, type of medium and so forth. It is also the reason that, though the degree of interest of the user should be taken into consideration, the prior art cannot conform to the conditions of the individual users (audiences). Furthermore, because tacit viewing is basically silent reading, namely, receiving of information, whether the data has been presented in the past or not greatly affects the time necessary for understanding the data. However, in the controlling technique chiefly dealing with transmission of information, such concept cannot be found.
In short, conventional time control is the controlling technique for dispatching; therefore it is difficult to derive a controlling technique therefrom for receiving such as the tacit viewing.
As described so far, in the prior art, if the peripheral data is going to be represented for realizing the tacit viewing, it has been impossible to estimate the time of representation of the peripheral data corresponding to the variations of language used in the focused data, specialty dealt with by the data, type of medium, user's interest or the like. Further, it has also been impossible to estimate the time of representation of the peripheral data based on the actual results of representation of the focused data in the past.
In other words, the prior art has been incapable of realizing the "function of controlling the timing of representation of the peripheral data as soon as the user's attention is released from the focused data (corresponding to problem (4))" among the functions indispensable for realization of the tacit viewing. More specifically, the function such that the time period necessary for the user to complete reading (grasping) the focused data can be calculated appropriately and flexibly corresponding to unexpected variations of the focused data has not been implemented.